head to head · open source
nanobot vs waku-agent
nanobot has 49,806 GitHub stars, 8,711 forks, 775 open issues and last shipped yesterday. waku-agent has 2,131 stars, 419 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. nanobot leads on adoption by 2,237% (49,806 vs 2,131 stars). nanobot is written in Python under MIT; waku-agent is written in Python under MIT. nanobot has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, waku-agent 20%. nanobot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agent-framework, ai-agent), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| nanobot | waku-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 419 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nanobot if
- You weight community size — 50K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick waku-agent if
- You want the waku-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and waku-agent fits your workflow better
About nanobot
English 简体中文 繁體中文 Español Français Bahasa Indonesia 日本語 한국어 Русский Tiếng Việt Discord · X · WeChat / Feishu nanobot 🐈 nanobot is an ultra lightweight, open source, self hosted personal AI agent framework written in Python. It runs in a WebUI, terminal, or chat apps and combines tools, long term memory, MCP integrations, model routing, multi agent delegation, scheduled automation, and an OpenAI compatible API in a small, readable core. Start Here What can nanobot do? nanobot is a self hosted personal AI agent runtime. It can: run in a browser WebUI or terminal connect to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WeChat, Email…
read the full nanobot overview →
About waku-agent
waku agent Your own AI assistant. On your laptop. In code you can read in an afternoon. Meet Waku — a local first personal assistant that shows the four pillars behind every serious agent: Harness · Loop · Memory · Eval/LLM Ops . No frameworks hiding the good parts. Built by seanchen.io. Local first. Your memory is one SQLite file. Open it. Read it. It's yours. Memory is the hero. Semantic + episodic + procedural — with a gate that decides whether to remember, and a pass that decides what to keep. The loop is 95 lines of plain Python. Step through it. Watch it think. A local dashboard lights up every message as…
read the full waku-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nanobot or waku-agent more popular?
nanobot has 49,806 GitHub stars and waku-agent has 2,131. nanobot has the larger community by that measure.
Are nanobot and waku-agent free?
Both are open source. nanobot is licensed under MIT and waku-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nanobot and waku-agent?
nanobot is written in Python and waku-agent in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nanobot or waku-agent?
Choose nanobot if you want the larger community (49,806 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose waku-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.